Award-Winning Poet Di Piero Visits the Academy

Lamont Poet W. S. Di Piero visited Exeter on Wednesday to read his work at an event open to the public. Di Piero, who is from Philadelphia, has taught at Northwestern University, Louisiana State University and Stanford University, where he current works as an English professor emeritus.

Di Piero is a primarily a poet, but has also pursued art criticism and has worked as an Italian literary translator, essayist and professor. He was awarded the Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize in 2012, and has worked as a fellow with the Guggenheim Foundation, The Ingram Merrill Foundation and the Lila Wallace- Reader’s Digest Foundation.

During his career as a poet, Di Piero has written many collections of poetry, including Chinese Apples: New and Selected Poems, Skirts and Slacks, Shadows Burning, The Restorers and The Dog Star.

On Wednesday night Di Piero was introduced by English instructor Matthew Miller. He read first from his 2011 poetry collection Nitro Nights and moved to his latest publication, Tombo for the later readings of the evening. After the reading, Di Piero held a book signing for interested students.

During the reading he chose approximately ten poems to read for the audience. Before and after each poem he provided anecdotes that aided understanding of the material. He told details about his life that included places that have influenced him and aspects of his life that he has spent time writing about.

Miller had suggested that Di Piero as a Lamont Poet visit after spending time as a fellow in a poetry workshop at Stanford with him. “We were looking for a poet to come in the spring,” Miller said, “and he’s very well known in the poetry world so it’s really an honor that we got to have him here. He was really thrilled to come and experience this world.”

Miller, who has spent time in his classes reading Di Piero’s work, especially admired his way with language and found him to be an invaluable poet to expose his students to. “He has this gritty wisdom in his writing and a way of looking at the world that is really quite unique and profound. It’s the awful that makes you see the beautiful, the rust that makes you see the shine,” Miller said.

Many students, including lower Nick Madamidola, are currently studying his work in English class, and came in hopes of understanding the poems more by listening to Di Piero explain his work.

Madamidola found that the background information Di Piero gave before reading each poem helped him understand some of his work much better, especially because Di Piero also talked about some of his ideas and theories about the world and some of his interests that were reflected in each poem.

“After one question he said that he believes this world is heaven and that through writing poetry and through finding the perfect stanza or sentence you can capitulate this idea of perfection and this idea of heaven,” Madamidola explained.

Madamidola hopes that his class can take a look back at the poems they have studied and see if they now understand parts of them that once confused them after the reading.

“I thought this was really interesting, and is something I will think about more. Maybe we can discuss this theme in English class and see if we can identify it in any of his poems.”

Prep Ricky Lee, like Madamidola, also found that through Di Piero’s talks between each poem he learned to understand Di Piero’s personality better, which he thinks will help him understand his work.

“Just hearing Di Piero’s ideas and learning about him as a person during the event really helped me and probably others understand his work better, as the work of a poet is always unique to that person and reflects the person's thoughts, beliefs and personality,” Lee said.